
ATI 

WAY 





"I AM ABSOLUTELY CON- 
VINCED THAT TO FOLLOW 
CHRIST IS THE BEST WAY." 




Class 

Book._ 



GoEyrigltfN?.- 



COPYRiGHT DEPOSIT. 




"TO FOLLOW CHRIST IS 
'THE MOST PROFITABLE AND 
COMMON SENSE THING FOR 
US TO TRY TO DO." 




THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 





>£ 



/ 




THE 

ATTRACTIVE WAY 




BY 



WILFRED T. GRENFELL, M.D. 





THE PILGRIM PRESS 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 




©CIA358134 ^ 
Y 




, 




CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. How to Find It 3 

II. "Don't" versus "Do" 12 

III. "Cubby-Holing" Religion .... 23 
TV. The Doctor to the Minister 

A Dialogue 39 

V. The Minister to the Doctor 

Another Dialogue 48 






ATTRACTIVE WAY 



HOW TO FIND IT 

THAT all human life, and mine in 
particular, can have a high purpose 
and a glorious future is with me an 
axiom. I have no message for any man 
who insists that life is purposeless and 
fruitless; though I would certainly agree 
that it is fruitless if purposeless, and 
purposeless if fruitless. That we want 
to win whatever prize our life makes 
possible is a corollary; and that there is 
a way to win it, is another. I look upon 
myself simply as a wayfarer quite ca- 
pable of losing the way, as I have often 
done in our arctic snow-fields and among 
these impenetrable fogs. I am abso- 
lutely convinced that to follow Christ is 
the best way and that if that way does 
not attract every one to it the fault is 
ours, who claim to be trying to walk it. 
In other words, to follow Christ is the 
3] 






THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

most profitable and common-sense thing 
for us to try to do. I am certain that if 
it were rightly represented, his work and 
way have met with such success already, 
and mankind has been so altered by his 
influence, that his way would make an 
attractive, natural, and effective appeal, 
whereas now many men are indifferent 
or averse to it. 

Life is a current. Yet we need not be 
always trying to dam it up and bring 
it to a standstill. The conservatism of 
to-day is the liberalism of yesterday. 
God can still look after his own business, 
as he has done through the ages, with- 
out having us denounce, criticize, and 
judge those who do not see eye to eye 
with us. The criticism of others, by 
men who think they possess a monopoly, 
is worse than any gossip of the tea- 
table. We are repeatedly forbidden to 
judge others; and yet we who think we 
are on "the way" do not seem able to 
forgo the pleasure which weak humanity 
finds in promoting criticism and scandal. 

We have forgotten that humility is 
an essential characteristic of "the way." 
The most intellectually humble men are 
[4] 



THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 




invariably to be found among the 
world's greatest scholars and famous 
scientists, while the most self-assertive 
and offensive have been found, too often, 
among those who were professedly the 
most earnest representatives of the 
Christ; and, alas, they have many ex- 
ponents to-day. More humility, more 
common sense of a cheerful kind, and 
more hard work are what are needed in 
us, whose lives are the real advertise- 
ments for "the way," if we wish to make 
it attractive to the modern young men, 
the makers of the future. 




I 



Many Paths, One Goal 

Of course not all men can agree at one 
time as to what is really most desirable. 
You have only to go into the street and 
ask the first half dozen men whom you 
meet the simplest question, to find that 
in methods scarcely two men ever agree, 
even while the main aim of all may be 
identical. Yesterday three of us started 
to go to the hospital over a distance 
of some ten miles, for at ten o'clock I 
had an important operation to perform. 
[5 





THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 



After disagreeing as to whether dog, 
sledge or boat would be quicker, two 
voted for boat, and so we went in that 
way. Three miles out we met floe ice 
tight to the land. One of the two who 
had voted for boat now wanted to re- 
turn and take a dog sledge. One voted 
for hauling the boat up on the rocks and 
walking, and one for punting through 
the ice if possible. We ended by agree- 
ing, for expediency's sake, that all 
should adopt the same method, and 
work hard at it; and we plumped for 
the boat. 

For the first half-hour leads of open 
water close to the feet of the cliffs, in 
spite of the breaking seas, allowed us to 
gain about two miles; then it became 
imperative to keep off among the ice, 
now jumping on the pans and poling or 
dragging the boat, now hauling her over 
flat, level sheets. At the end of an 
hour's hard pounding, with our eyes 
fixed on the immediate work, we hap- 
pened to look up to the hills. The floe 
had been carrying us bodily north, and 
we were exactly where we had started. 
However, we "plugged at it," and even- 
6] 






THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 




tually made our appointment with five 
minutes to spare. 

On looking back we calculated that 
we would have accomplished the task 
equally well by any of the three methods, 
if we had been in earnest, and worked 
as hard. I fail to see now, even by the 
light of experience, which was the ideal 
way. The trouble was we did not know 
which way was ideal and had no means of 
finding out. We had no guide to whom 
to appeal and could only judge by our 
past experience. If we had been pro- 
vided with fast, strong horses, or a 
railway train, land would have been the 
ideal way; if our ice-protected motor 
boat had not been still buried deep under 
a snow-bank, sea would have been the 
ideal way; if we had had an aeroplane 
— well, we might or might not have 
arrived — we should have thought it 
ideal anyway. The road is very hilly, 
and a long-winded runner subject to 
seasickness would have won out best by 
land; a short, stocky, fat fellow, best by 
boat; — and none of us could drive an 
aeroplane in any case. 

No human being can devise any one 
[7] 





THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

plan which is best to help every kind of 
man, since men differ so radically that 
what helps one hinders another. Paul 
claimed that all knowledge or science is 
a current thing, transitory, passing away 
with the flight of time and the evolution 
of wisdom. His has certainly passed 
away in every single intellectual position 
which can to-day be called science. We 
hold neither his chemistry, physiology, 
physics, astronomy, botany, geology, or 
any other "ology." Only those advo- 
cates of any plan of life are attractive 
and persuasive who show humility and 
charity. 

No Universal Method 

In the most recent text-books which 
tell us how to restore to health the poor 
fellow upon whom I was hastening home 
to operate this morning, there are at 
least ten different methods, all equally 
highly recommended. Each individ- 
ual's method is often the result of the 
clinic in which he was brought up, or of 
his own peculiar intellectual gifts; and 
the stronger these influences are, the 
more convinced the man is that his is the 

[S 







THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

only way. Fortunately in matters deal- 
ing with physical life the exponents of 
methods have never been led to offer the 
abuse, inflict the injuries, and express 
the contempt for those who differ from 
them which have so unworthily charac- 
terized many who claim pre-eminence of 
infallibility for their own methods of 
restoring to moral and spiritual health 
the sick in heart and soul. 

In the endeavor to restore physical 
health there have arisen many schools 
and each has its ardent adherents. 
But with the increase of knowledge we 
have come to recognize that the most 
successful way is always that which is 
most natural, or which most closely imi- 
tates Nature's way, — which means 
simply the way of the great Giver of Life. 
Humanity has not discovered an ideal 
way in things pertaining to physical 
life, and we have no right to suppose 
that there is any possibility of our fully 
attaining the ideal, viz., the power to 
prolong mortal life till it shall become 
eternal. We know of no surgically in- 
fallible representative of God here on 
earth, in the past or the present, to whom 
[9] 




ATTRACTIVE 



we can go, so that by receiving his in- 
struction or imitating his methods we 
may reach, or ever even agree on, a 
universally acceptable method. 




The Desire to be Helpful 

Christ restricted himself to laying 
down great principles, applicable to all 
ages, leaving mankind to adapt them to 
peculiarities of time and place. A life 
which adorns these principles and illus- 
trates them in a common-sense way is 
now attractive to all men. Men to-day 
are more chivalrous than were the blood- 
thirsty Knights of the Round Table, and 
enjoy doing helpful things, and that at 
personal cost, even though they do not 
wish and will not acknowledge any 
labels. The ideal is no longer "not 
doing wrong," or even the guilelessness 
of the Colonel Newcome type; modern 
young men love " something doing," that 
is achievement. I remember Phillips 
Brooks' words, "What, you say, the man 
who imperfectly understands Christ, 
who doesn't know anything about his 
divinity, who denies the great doctrines 
[10 





THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 




of the church regarding him, is he a 
Christian? Certainly he is, my friends. 
There is no other test than this, the 
following of Jesus Christ. I cannot 
sympathize with any feeling that desires 
to make the name of Christian a nar- 
rower name. I would know any man as 
a Christian, rejoice to know any man as 
a Christian, whom Jesus would recognize 
as a Christian, and Jesus Christ, I am 
sure, in those old days, recognized his 
followers even if they came after him 
with the blindest sight." 




[11] 





FOR many years I had been inter- 
ested in what, for lack of other 
description, I am bound to call "the 
religious life" of the people in a certain 
fishing village. Young men had grown 
to beyond middle age since I first knew 
them and were still steadily adhering to 
three Sunday services and three week- 
day meetings. I had already pointed it 
out as a place where the beautiful results 
of a true Christian religion were beyond 
question. 

Some of the leading men had been 
discussing the morality of one or two 
richer men in the harbor who had taken 
out grants for the land, were cutting it 
up into lots, and making newcomers pay 
for it. They had decided that it was 
not Christian. A little later I was talk- 




agguifK 







THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

ing to one of them, a really first-class old 
fellow. 

"Uncle Joe, didn't you take a Govern- 
ment grant?" 

"Yes, Doctor." 

"Haven't you sold four lots already?" 

"Why, yes, Doctor. It gives me a 
few cents in my old age." 

"I thought you said it was wrong to 
take up the land and sell it to new- 
comers." 

"So it is, Doctor, so it is. But you 
see we be only poor men." Religion 
here was theory, not practise; none of 
the others had any land to sell. 

Applying Religion to Forestry 

Another time the best thinking men 
in the place had agreed that in order to 
try and save the beauty of the harbor 
and to attract visitors there, who would 
spend money for the benefit of those 
incapacitated for earning their living 
by fishing, a law should be passed for- 
bidding the cutting of the trees within 
a certain radius of the harbor. During 
a trial of one of the men for breaking 
131 






THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

the law, one or two men asked leave to 
speak. One of them was the leader of 
the " revival " services which were being 
held in the harbor. He wanted to state 
his opinion that "the fishermen were 
not 'out for beauty, but for comfort.' 
They didn't see why the men should 
not cut down the few little trees left 
and grub up the roots as well, as has 
been done in other places." The Bench, 
which had not "got religion" by their 
standard, tried to point out that it would 
be only for a short while that they would 
derive the slightest benefit, and that 
it would injure the place permanently. 
Moreover, a beautiful home and harbor 
always help one to live a beautiful life. 
Cutting the trees spoiled the gardens, 
as the snow all drifted away and left 
the bare ground. It kept all those who 
were unable, like him, to go fishing 
without a chance of employment. No 
man could live to himself anyhow. 

But the man went away declaring that 
he did not see what he was going to get 
out of it, and he thought a man should 
do as he liked for his comfort. Business 
being over, he could now go back to 
[141 






THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

religion for the evening. Even these 
trifling instances suggest how such paro- 
dies of Christ's way have made it seem 
contemptible in the minds of thinking 
men. 

The Doer Always Acclaimed 

The healthy human mind rejects, the 
vigorous youthful mind rejects, and the 
younger and more healthful they are 
the more they do not care to hide the 
fact that they hate the doctrine that the 
ideal way is "not to do." The policy 
of Fabius Cunctator is possibly com- 
mendable only when it corresponds with 
the Scotch ideal of biding one's time, 
or getting fully ready to deliver a crush- 
ing blow. The surgeon who refuses to 
operate in an early stage of the disease, 
fearing for his own reputation, really 
neglects to operate. The wayfarer who 
does not help his neighbor in trouble, 
for fear of spoiling his clothes, or even 
of his life, is neglecting his duty, and his 
philosophy is contemptible. The best 
spirit in every man acclaims him only 
as ideal who does things, at whatever 
sacrifice. 





TTRACTIVE WAY 



One winter the leading exponents of 
a sect for which I have the highest re- 
spect, and among whom I number some 
of my best friends with the highest 
ideals, adopted and imported for their 
instruction in the way of life a book 
issued by their church for the guid- 
ance of its members. Not to drink, 
smoke, dance, play cards, go to the 
theater, work on Sundays, swear, and 
other indulgences and occupations were 
scheduled and " indexed," as were many 
sins of immorality which go without 
saying and would have been just as well 
omitted. Taboos were laid on certain 
forms of art which appeal to many, on 
entertainments which many advocate 
as being especially regenerative, and 
on forms of clothing which in some 
countries are positively national. It 
so happened that a most ardent young 
medical man and proud adherent of a 
noted Scotch clan was spending the 
winter with me at his own expense, for 
no other reason than to try and realize 
his own ideal of the way of life, and had 
brought with him the special garments 
it was his proud distinction to be allowed 
[16] 




ATTRACTIVE WAY 



to wear. As he had arrived in the late 
fall, he had not yet found the climate 
here specially adapted to bare knees, 
but all the same he was looking forward 
to displaying these garments to honor 
some special occasion. I can still re- 
member his face when I pointed out 
that they were included in this Index 
Expurgatorius. 

It might be supposed that to make 
every seventh day one of rest, and to 
call that day the one now almost uni- 
versally agreed upon, and to insist upon 
its observance, now that it has been 
scientifically and philosophically demon- 
strated as advisable, is at least more or 
less ideal and not calculated to "stir up 
evil." But the problem as to which is 
the day we must not do things has been 
one of our worst troubles. There came 
into our harbor a teacher who insisted 
that the day before was a better day, 
the real and only ideal day, and its 
observance, instead of our chosen day, 
essential to the way of life. A very 
few left their old church and followed 
him. They ostentatiously went out 
fishing while their former comrades of 
17 





THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 





"the way," still studied and followed 
the precepts of the expurgatory book. 
I can still see being thrown from the 
church on Monday the firewood which 
had been carefully cut on Sunday and 
brought freely for the humble ministry 
of fuel. My Scotch friend had left 
the Coast, but here at least he stands 
avenged. Many believe that even dogs 
are affected by ridicule, and certainly 
nothing can be more harmful to any 
human cause than that it should be 
obviously ridiculous. 



The Beauty of the Open Mind 

The recognition of this is of primal 
importance in these days for the wel- 
fare of the kingdom of God. Gentleness 
now is needed, not so much of action, 
for that is forced upon us, but gentle- 
ness — gentle manliness — of thought. 
Self-assertiveness is one of the most 
repellent attributes of any man. No 
great man can be so or he is not great. 
Fancy Lord Lister sneering at and de- 
nouncing even those whose "old ways" 
his immortal discovery was to revolu- 
18 





THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 





t ionize. On the contrary they de- 
nounced the way of the man who 
conferred one of the greatest blessings 
mankind has ever received. Harvey 
gave mankind the inestimable boon of 
the knowledge of the circulation of the 
blood, but the old school of his day only 
accepted it practically at the point of 
the bayonet. Jenner and Pasteur saved 
millions of lives through their patient 
and masterful work. The old school 
abused them, and still, in spite of facts, 
the shallow denounce them. 

It has been the same with every 
advance which can be named which has 
helped to revolutionize human knowl- 
edge and advantage human life. It 
seems it must be so. But at least let 
us not do this ignorantly, defeating our 
own ends and debarring men from 
following the Christ avowedly, because 
of our intellectual conceit or overslept 
conservatism. Science suggests to us 
now that there is no such thing as 
matter, all is a form of motion and 
we merely the expression of perpetual 
vortices of whirling motion. Can we 
not be content with merely judging 
19 





THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 





ourselves and criticizing our own 
methods ? 

The Wholesome School of 
Experience 

Experience would teach me that as 
men grow older the strong bias of youth- 
ful days, like the rills in thawing snow, 
tends to become obliterated, and the 
refreshing streams do run at last into 
larger and more beneficent channels. 
This, to us medical men, is not a symp- 
tom of defective processes in the machine 
which makes thought possible. Mean- 
while we have broadened the meaning of 
the word " monomania " to include and 
qualify as needing control the whole 
genus of those whose misfortune it is to 
arrogate to themselves intellectually that 
which they most certainly do not possess. 
Experience was suggested by the great 
Master as the one school in which all can 
learn whether his teachings as to " the 
way " were of God or man. This school 
for doing things may cost us dear, but 
it has the merits of no undeserved in- 
vectives, and even if we do make failures 
in our attempts, even if we do uninten- 
[20 





THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

tionally select wrong methods, such 
wanderings as those of Kim and his 
lama ended in the haven where they 
would be because they kept on, and 
Tyl and Mytil found the Blue Bird by 
much doing. Shall we not concede at 
least that this may be equally as true 
of any man's groping, even if his 
methods are not ours? 

I am now speaking to those who are 
in earnest about life. Eternity is not 
long enough to convince the blase in- 
differentist who cares nothing for life 
or believes that neither the way nor the 
goal exists at all. It seems futile to spend 
time arguing about ideals with those in 
whom physical or intellectual wealth has 
only aroused a contempt for life and a 
chronic condition of boredom. Nor does 
it seem more profitable to expect words 
to alter the way of life of those in whom 
either wealth or illiteracy has permitted 
an unreasoning bias against life to de- 
velop. The foolishness of mere word 
preaching can only save the few anyhow. 
Dean Hodges is not the only authority 
who has put on record that he is a fortu- 
nate man who, because of its mystery, 
[21] 




THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 




sees the dignity of life, and he quotes 
Mazzini as saying that a man has learned 
nothing unless he has learned to wonder. 
Bishop Brooks says the outlook into 
mystery has ever a stronger intellectual 
influence than the inspection of discov- 
ered facts. 

Certainly if entrance to heaven de- 
pends on an intellectual attitude, quite 
the majority will be left out, while our 
colored friends in the South will probably 
be far more generously represented. A 
mixture of Revelation and a minstrel 
show always left me as a boy with the 
idea of heaven as a place especially 
adapted for pleasing them, as a loud 
noise does the adherents of certain sects. 
I have positively heard men hide what 
should be their despair at this fact by 
quoting the Master as saying that we 
cannot expect the wise or rich in God's 
gifts to be largely represented. Such a 
view of heaven obviously does not make 
it very attractive to young manhood. 








CUBBY-HOLING RELIGION 

THE fear that Christ's way of life 
involves communism and socialism 
on the absolutely equal division of prop- 
erty basis led largely to the boxing off of 
religion from every-day life, and a sort 
of tacit acknowledgment has arisen that 
it is too radical a thing to mix with ordi- 
nary business. The process has made 
it such an enfeebled and unattractive 
plant that many persons now think it an 
exotic which needs a glass cover and 
a cubby hole all to itself, otherwise it 
would perish. The Oriental hyperbole 
was perfectly understood in Christ's day. 
To believe that he insisted on men hating 
their parents and their own lives is a 
direct contradiction of his own state- 
ments that he came not to abolish but 
to fulfil that law, which includes only 

[ 





THE ATTRACTIVE 

one with a special promise attached to 
it; viz., that we must honor our parents. 
It would be positively suicidal for a 
physician in the arctic not to have two 
coats, even though I have seen children 
and even adults without what one could 
properly call one. Christ obviously 
leaves us freedom to use common sense, 
natural sense, sense the direct gift of 
the Creator of the brain, in dealing 
with property and business. We know 
of only one rich man whom he told 
to give away what was ruining his 
character. 

Raising the Moral Level 

The wisest teachers of this age are one 
with the Master in agreeing that no way 
is too expensive to attain that supreme 
prize of life, character. Thus some con- 
sider that the man who corners food- 
stuff, cuts down his workmen to the last 
penny, squeezes the fishermen to the 
lowest price, obtains special protection 
for his wares at the consumer's expense, 
can yet be a Christian if he believes 
in the miraculous birth of Christ, his 
resurrection, etc., and sings hymns and 
[24] 






ATTRACTIVE WAY 

prays prayers. We simply cannot con- 
ceive God as valuing clothes and atti- 
tudes and ceremonies as he does life. 
We must remember that unless our fol- 
lowing of " the way " leads us to raise 
our entire standard of business morality, 
to a common-sense Judge we are not so 
good as other heathen who more nearly 
live up to their high moral code. We 
expect to answer before a tribunal char- 
acterized by sanity and righteousness, 
before a Judge whom Scripture suggests 
is also gifted with a sense of humor. 

Why should not every judge, as one 
has shown us a judge can do, make it 
the aim and object of his professional 
work to cure the criminal ? WTay should 
it not be the absorbing interest of every 
medical man to eliminate himself by add- 
ing to his labors "social work" which 
should tend more and more to eradicate 
disease? Why should not manufac- 
turers, as some do, make it their chief 
aim to dignify and reward their laborers ; 
why should not retailers seek to do for 
their customers as they would be done 
by? Wliy should not the clergy seek 
only for the advance of God's Kingdom, 

[25] 





THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

and not for that of the little church 
which they call theirs ? Judge Lindsey, 
Parson Worcester, Doctor Cabot, the 
National Cash Register Company, Lever 
Brothers are notable examples of what 
such a spirit can do to help on righteous- 
ness, joy, and peace. 

Educators are certainly trying more 
to-day to teach their pupils to select 
and prepare for lives where they can 
contribute most to the common good. 
Property owners to-day see that it pays, 
even in a mundane sense, to study their 
tenants' interests. Statesmen are more 
and more exhibiting the same spirit, 
and the voters are ever increasingly 
demanding it. Christ would have a far 
better chance of occupying the White 
House to-day than ever he had for 
Herod's throne. The fact is we know 
that Christ's way is the way for business, 
for we have learned that lasting joy and 
worth-while success are only to be 
measured by what we give, and not what 
we get. Only the shallow can afford to 
laugh at Christ's teaching that it is more 
blessed to give than to receive. Only 
those who for some reason are behind 



THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 




the times in knowledge can afford to-day 
to laugh at the old alchemist who said 
that precious stones can be made out of 
dirt and gold out of apparently ignoble 
elements. 

To many, much modern business does 
seem inconsistent with Christ's way of 
life; one could not fancy him gambling 
in stocks or squeezing unearned incre- 
ment out of land grabbing. I remarked 
to one friend last year who was pointing 
out to me a section of land out of which 
he had just made a big "scoop," "It 
seems hard on the newcomers." He 
looked puzzled, and then said, "That's 
business. You can't expect to mix 
religion and business" — as if they were 
oil and water. 



An Avoided Subject 

The divorce of our religion from our 
life has become so accepted that we 
hardly notice it. For the ordinary busi- 
ness man or college student to talk about 
his relation to things eternal under every- 
day circumstances is entirely abnormal, 
however convinced we may be that we 
[27 




THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 





are Christians. It has almost become 
immoral. We speak of it with bated 
breaths as of something outside our lives, 
instead of it being the very breath of our 
life. Others again consider it so inti- 
mate to their personality that they do 
not wish to have to defend it, thinking 
partly that it must be intuitive and 
carries no credentials to convince the 
ordinary mind, and partly deterred by 
the exhibitions of that cheap emotion- 
alism which so readily lends itself to 
parody; and anyway they do not wish 
to talk about it as being too sacred for 
every-day life. 

This divorce is not recent; it dates 
back to childhood and training. Thus 
it is probably right to say grace before 
meals, but people would look askance 
if you began to speak naturally about 
Jesus Christ as if he were sitting at the 
table. Dinner of course is a vital part 
of your daily life. Yet the fact that the 
religion of the churches seems to be 
divorced from every-day life is certainly 
not due to the fact that there is any 
diminution of interest in or reverence 
for the person of Christ. 
[28] 






THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

The absurdity of cubby-holing any 
section of life cannot be better illus- 
trated than in the one which unfortu- 
nately affects the majority of men in 
their most impressionable and formative 
period of life. 

Everyone knows that if six chance 
men were to be thrown together who 
claimed that they were Christians, and 
if some one were to ask them whether 
a Christian man were to play cards — 
say draw poker — there would be a 
difference of opinion. I have heard two 
clergymen argue that whist and bridge 
were all right for Christians, whereas 
euchre, poker, and forty -five were non- 
Christian. One might have been back 
in Judea listening to a discussion among 
the Pharisees about phylacteries. If 
Jesus had walked in, wouldn't he have 
said, "Whatever are you fighting about 
in this cubby-hole, while all the rest of 
the world outside is busy living?" 



Varying Judgments 

Some Christian leaders and teachers 
to-day are thoroughly opposed to the 
[29 





THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

theater; others just as strongly biased 
in its favor. Some denounce horse 
racing; others men racing; still others 
physical competitions to which they are 
not inclined, such as the noble art of self- 
defense. In the end one would expect 
to see published a list of games and pas- 
times especially designed for young 
Christians; only when written down in 
black and white it looks ridiculous. 
Common sense realizes that in play as 
well as in work a man cannot qualify 
as a Christ follower by the games he 
doesn't play. It results in the stigma- 
tizing of drinking alcohol, smoking 
opium or tobacco, taking unearned in- 
crement in the one particular way of 
getting it to which is given the name 
of betting or gambling. 

I have now an old fisherman dying 
of cancer. He can neither read nor 
write, but lying in bed he contributes 
to life the service which is now all he is 
capable of rendering — by displaying a 
patient spirit and a happy and contented 
mind, now that we have allowed him 
his pipe. We get as much benefit out 
of the tobacco as he does. Often when 




THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

I am tired out I find I can get mental 
rest better by playing a game of cribbage 
than in any other way. To some who 
regard this as a game for old ladies 
exclusively the above remark will sound 
almost axiomatic. 

We realize the dangers of all cumula- 
tive drugs; so we do those of even too 
much bread and butter. I never forget 
a poor patient who choked himself by 
pushing too much bread and butter 
down his throat. We recognize the 
dangers of fog and ice, of boats and 
guns, of bad air and tight clothes, of 
going upstairs and coining down again. 
We realize the serious dangers of gam- 
bling, card playing, prize fighting, loaf- 
ing, of too much money, and of too little 
of emotional excitement, of praying, of 
singing, of asceticism, of thinking of self 
too much from a worldly religious point 
of view, of worldliness and unworldli- 
ness, and of being in the world at all, 
such as the "unco guid" would weep 
over. I have known a man thank God 
for carrying the latest addition to his 
large family off to heaven and far from 
the temptations of this wicked world. 
[31 







THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

No need to add here to the list of dan- 
gers. Suffice it to say that Christ 
labeled and cubby-holed none of them; 
it has remained for the arrogance of man 
to affix the labels. I believe Christ did 
label hypocrisy. Christ's way permits 
one to be a life-long total abstainer. He 
permits me to condemn alcohol as a 
beverage, but not the man who takes 
it. He stands or falls to God alone. 

The Sentences that are Saving 
the World 

Our lakes and fjords here in spring, 
after the snows have melted, are per- 
fectly clear, life-giving reservoirs; all 
the useless matter sinks to the bottom. 
But as soon as man comes along and 
mixes up these God-given supplies for 
cleansing and refreshing human life they 
become useless for the purpose for which 
they were intended and often harmful. 
I believe that if the greatest minds in 
the best equipped laboratories of earth, 
amidst the man-made fog which now 
obscures "the way," would search for 
Christ's way just as now they search for 
[32] 



« 





ATTRACTIVE WAY 

siderium or coronium or one of the new 
elements known to exist in the heavens 
but not yet found on earth, all they 
would have left to offer their students 
would be a guide-book of a few sentences. 
But it would be an appeal to the com- 
mon sense of all time. 

The pages of history are the sign 
manual of the advance of Christ's King- 
dom, and his teaching will always be 
found to answer to the latest tests of 
the ages. To win out we must want 
to win. We must exercise choice, and 
therefore "the way" should be made 
especially attractive, and it can only 
be that to real manhood if it is part and 
parcel of everything else. So long as it 
is in a separate box labeled " Religion " 
it is obvious that a very small percent- 
age of the desirable active element will 
consciously select it as their department. 

The need seems to be a sort of "back 
to the land " movement and a remorse- 
less tearing up of the weeds of supersti- 
tion, tradition, fanaticism, conservatism, 
and of well-meaning mental instabil- 
ity, till once again it is just God's 
own soil to sweeten and nourish and 
[331 



THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 



cause the human soul to fructify, instead 
of a thorn-choked wilderness with a peren- 
nial crop of sanctimonious selfishness. 

The best revival we ever saw here was 
when the tail end of a cyclone actually 
took the building, which the folk had 
mistaken for God's church, and whisked 
it, seats, floor, and all, right into the 
middle of the harbor. All hands found 
refreshing supplies of God's grace in the 
free labor cheerfully given and labori- 
ously served for no cash return, and in 
the new house of their public worship, 
because of the personal labor every board 
and timber represented to them. Poor 
people who build their own little homes 
love them out of all proportion to the 
occupiers of even model tenements or 
modern palaces. Enduring love is the 
true test of real value. Even medicine 
and cold still find love and gratitude 
when they are understood. 

The actual value of a diamond ring 
for your nose or ear, or any other portion 
of your anatomy, with the anxiety and 
expense of properly protecting it, is prob- 
lematical and deferred, except so far 
it carries cherished memories or poten 
[341 





THE ATTRACTIVE 

tial energy. Among the gold medals, 
nobly earned, which have proved of most 
value to mankind was the large one 
given to General Gordon, and its value 
was in the fact that a man could be 
found who, because he was a follower 
of Christ, when the poor Chinese were 
starving by thousands, was a life citizen 
of the world enough to scrape off the 
inscription and send it to the famine 
fund. That kind of religion is always 
modern. It is what men think now 
Christ would have done. It is what 
they would like to have done. It is not 
the result of a temporary supreme effort 
which says "I will be religious today." 
It is the natural fruit of the land, not 
the spasmodic effort of a whilom hot-bed. 




The Cure for Lukewarmness 

If you want to save a man from temp- 
tation, self, and despair, find him some 
work to do. To show the world that 
Christ needs a "Labor Party," and then 
to show the members how to work, and 
act as whip for the party is the role 
which the church must play if it is 

[1 





THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 





not to atrophy out of existence. Luke- 
warmness is becoming more and more 
incompatible with manhood's digestion, 
and the church which does not lay- 
supreme emphasis on work must in- 
evitably, in the expressive language of 
Scripture, be "Vomited out of the 
mouth." 

Two years ago I was discussing with 
a young university graduate of con- 
siderable wealth and no ties this very 
question — where he could best put 
in his life. His gifts were great, but 
especially strong along a certain line. 
We longed for his help here, but we 
decided that he had a larger field for 
his talents in big cities. 

Here again I believe most intensely in 
the need of that arm of contact with 
the live Rail, which we call "prayer." 
I have never seen real prayer go un- 
answered, and I have seen it remove 
mountains. Yet it was made in secret 
to the Father who seeth in secret. 

The need for all which any man has 
to give is a corollary also of the 
axiom that life is given us for a pur- 
pose, and this surely is high enough to 
[36 



m 




THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 





appeal to anyone. Still in the world 
there is merciless competition. Still 
men, anxious to work, starve for the 
need of it, while endless work goes 
undone. God knows there exists a 
need for really up-to-date doctors and 
lawyers with Christ's spirit, to heal and 
advise and save, if they will only go 
where there is need and not necessarily 
a cash return. The giving and not the 
getting decides the location ; though I do 
not mean to say that any place where a 
man's lot is thrown is not needy enough, 
if he will only find out that need and try 
to meet it. There are festering, over- 
crowded slums, and lands are lying idle 
while the world is in need of their pos- 
sible products. The fear of the wolf of 
hunger still overshadows the old age of 
countless of our fellowmen and even- 
tually drags them down to a miser- 
able death. Vampires living on vice 
and frauds living on ignorance still find 
plentiful victims who might be saved. 

A man need not recognize a label, but 
that he should recognize and avow his 
own definite decision to be a worker is 
essential for his development and for 
37 





THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

his full usefulness to others who are 
following the same "way." Among the 
many university students who each year 
come to help out down here I have 
never yet found one whom the whole 
lot will characterize as worth while 
who has not been not only willing 
literally to go into the drain to dig, but 
spoiling for it or any useful work. No 
man who appeals to manhood has false 
shame about avowing such a purpose. 
The term "Christian" was never in- 
tended to be a final judgment on a 
closed career — only to characterize the 
follower of the way of life of the Naza- 
rene carpenter. It has only again to 
become synonymous with unselfish aims 
and solid work, and no longer be a term 
for intellectual orthodoxy, and it will 
attract a hundred where it now attracts 






IV 

THE DOCTOR TO THE MINISTER 
A DIALOGUE 

/^VNE Sunday after church I was 
^-^ talking to my friend the minister. 
"Did you know Jim Mathew's wife had 
a baby last night? I was there till day- 
light. She hasn't a solitary thing in 
the house; not a rag for the baby, and 
only a mouthful of dry flour for herself. 
She only got through at all owing to 
the hospital feeding her these last two 
months." She lived only about two 
hundred and fifty yards from the little 
church, and we are a small village. 

"No," he replied; "the Orange Lodge 
looks after its members, and Jim's an 
Orangeman." 

"That may be true, but the whole 
family is starving, and your people are 
doing nothing except to talk about f eed- 
[39] 






THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

ing the hungry. Don't you recognize 
a need for definite organization of Christ 
followers just for this purpose and others 
similar to it?" 

"Yes," he replied; "but on a scattered 
coast like this it is all a man can do to 
get around and do his preaching." 

"Preaching is only a way to an end. 
However, it is a good thing you've got 
in that boy's club," I replied. "It is 
the first thing which ever came to this 
harbor that really reached the boys. 
If I want to know about any lad in 
trouble, that good fellow Jones can 
always tell me; the boys just love him." 

"Oh, our church hasn't anything to 
do with the club. You see, they keep 
it open prayer-meeting nights, and the 
older members don't believe in it." 

"But you do yourself, surely?" 

"Of course. But you know, Doctor, 
one has to make concessions, and some 
people are so bigoted. These are our 
very best people too, in every other way. 
But they are terribly afraid of anything 
new." 

"What kind of people are bigoted?" 
I answered. "Are they Christians?" 
[40] 






THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

He smiled and looked, as I know 
he was, sorely troubled. He had been 
taught to cubby-hole religion and was 
just beginning to wake up to the evil 
and the waste of it; and yet he had an 
honest fear that God needed convention 
more than common sense. 

So I went on, "You just tell the next 
minister when you go, to be on the look- 
out for a cross and crown of thorns, 
which I know he'll get, if only he will be 
brave enough and have faith enough to 
stand for some of these things in which 
your older members do not believe. He 
must at first expect to lose on a count 
of heads. But you see religious people 
will have to answer to a rational tribunal. 
Spontaneous giving may be all right and 
very enjoyable, but it isn't meeting the 
problem. If we are to try and act as 
Christians in relation to this problem 
of poverty, we must give it as much 
thought and effort, organized and com- 
bined, as we possibly can — in fact as 
if we were arranging for some one we 
really cared about, like our wife, or our 
children, or shall we say ourselves? 
What do we expect when we have to 
411 






THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

acknowledge to a righteous Judge that 
whatever we did, you as a clergyman 
and I as a doctor, or anyone else in his 
special occupation, was most unbusiness- 
like and a failure? The hungry were 
not fed, and we were. The young men 
and women did go wrong in spite of us. 
We had no time to devote to trying to 
train their tastes, to occupy their waste 
time, or develop their latent talents; to 
teach them industries to add to their 
earning capacities; to improve their 
sanitary conditions; to teach them the 
laws of health and the values of food; 
though some of these things were all 
some of us had to give the world. 

"WTiat do you think Christ would 
be doing if he came here and saw folk 
suffering the curse of the damned from 
scurvy, just from want of knowing how 
to lay out the value of their fish? If he 
saw them with beri-beri because they 
couldn't cook decently, and wouldn't 
use the whole meal flour and beans to 
prevent it; and miserable children, 
legged and narrow chested, 
because one cannot feed cows in this 
country unless one is well off — can't 
[421 






GmLS 






THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

you see him giving cooking lessons? 
Can't you see him smashing window 
panes to let in fresh air to consumptive 
houses, so as to let people know by 
experience what can save them? Can't 
you see him holding night schools to 
teach men to manage better and econo- 
mize such gifts as he has given them? 
I can see him night after night saying to 
a class of our old graybeards, 'Three 
times three is nine; two times four is 
eight,' and chalking it up on the wall 
till poor old Jim could read his count and 
so save a few cents here and there to 
have 'a s'prise tin o' milk in t' locker, 
to have it to give to t' missis when dere 
comes a pinch.' 

"I see him starting schemes to sell 
necessities cheaper; fighting to find 
markets for better prices for our staple 
products. I see him training voters or 
serving in the assembly; I see him a 
statesman negotiating treaties. I see 
him helping fellows to go to college, 
to go to technical schools. If you had 
lived in Nazareth, Parson, and seen 
'Carpentry done here' on a sign over a 
house, and if you knew that Jesus and 
[43] 





THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 



Joseph were the men who were going 
to take on your job, would you expect 
the doors to jam and the windows to 
stick? If a carpenter did a shoddy 
piece of work for me I should strongly 
suspect his Christianity, and all his 
professions and confessions of faith 
wouldn't induce me to give him another 
job." 

"But how can a church do all those 
things?" 

"A church? What is a church but 
a body of live men and women, united 
so as better to relive Christ's life? It 
must surely keep trying to do these 
things, and do them in Christ's way, or 
it isn't a Christian church at any 
rate." 

"But, Doctor, it's impossible for a 
minister to have time to instruct in all 
those things. Isn't it his business to be 
preaching the Gospel? " 

"My dear Parson, do you honestly 
think you have given us one single piece 
of information since you came on this 
shore that we did not know already? 
Don't you think that before you go into 
the pulpit we know by the cut of your 
[44] 





THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

clothing, even if we don't know your 
name, the pith of what you are going 
to say? Words are only man-made ways 
to convey ideas, and pretty poorly they 
often enough express them, especially 
if they are addressed to those who 
cannot speak the particular language or 
cannot read or write like some of your 
folk here. Everyone understands lives, 
and like experience they are the most 
reliable teachers — read of all men, too. 
Doesn't it seem to you that the deeper 
a man's experience is, the less ready he 
is to try and be an oracle on the one 
subject which your very office binds 
you to claim to be an authority? 

"Will your successor, as did your 
predecessor, confine all his God-given 
gifts to telling us the same story, the 
same maxims, and the same illustrations 
which we have heard a hundred times? 
When our minds awaken, and the prog- 
ress which has opened the minds of 
laboring men in other places awakens 
our intelligence as well, and we come to 
weigh the church's work in the balance 
of our common sense, won't you, Parson, 
have any fear of the decision of a jury 
[45 





THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

of, say, the best twelve good and true 
men in our harbor? What will the great 
all-knowing Judge say? 'What did 
you do to elevate the intelligence of my 
young men?' 'I talked to them and 
asked you to do the rest.' 'Did you 
do nothing more?' 'Nothing.' 'What 
did you do to improve the condition of 
the poor?' 'I told the congregation 
to feed and clothe them and gave away 
all I had.' 'Did you do nothing 
more?' 'Nothing. I hadn't time.' 
'What did you do for the health and 
homes and economics of my people?' 
'I talked to them and told them to 
obey and not complain.' 'Did you 
do nothing more, nothing to improve 
them?' 'Nothing. I had no time.' 
'Did you use all the common sense 
with which I endowed you to educate, 
uplift, prevent suffering from reaching 
my people, with the same intelligent 
interest you showed in your own 
wife, in your own boys, in yourself? 
Are you satisfied with your method 
of advertising "the way"? Was your 
love as intelligent as you could make 
it?' 




THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 



"What can you answer? I am not 
for a moment trying to lay down what 
such a Judge will or will not say about 
your sermons, preachings, and prayer 
meetings; but what would you say?" 









V 



THE MINISTER TO THE DOCTOR 
ANOTHER DIALOGUE 

IT was his turn now and he began in 
good earnest. "Doctor, don't you 
think we ought to be insisting that Jesus 
was the Son of God?" 

"I'd answer that, Parson, by saying 
that I certainly do. For my part, I 
believe he was whatever he claimed to 
be, even if men differ as to what they 
conceive that really was." 

" You believe he was different from us 
as being God?" 

"I have said I believe he was what- 
ever he claimed to be. I think abso- 
lutely that each honest man must have 
his own intellectual interpretation of 
what he did claim, and that depends on 
the gray matter of the brain which God 
has given any particular individual. A 
48] 








THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

man's life and actions depend on the 
attitude of his moral and spiritual 
being." 

"Isn't a clergyman bound to preach 
his own interpretation?" 

"Well, I'm not a clergyman, but I 
should say he was bound only to uplift 
men to follow Christ. He is neither 
bound to deny his own convictions or 
express all of them. I am inclined to 
think that each denomination expects 
its clergy to teach what it teaches." 

"Would you have a minister a casuist 
or a sophist, then, by telling only half 
that he thinks?" 

"I know men in every profession who 
never say in public what their intellect 
leads them to say to chosen friends, 
who understand them just as Christ 
himself did. WTien the disciples, whom 
Christ wanted especially to understand, 
as they were to be his teachers, asked 
him questions, he didn't always answer 
them. There is a man next door to 
you with, in all probability, a fatal 
disease. The object of the contact of 
my life with his is to save him, not to 
kill him. There is a chance that any 
49 







THE ATTRACTIV 



human brain may misinterpret. If I 
went to him and told him that he was 
going to die, knowing him as I do and 
his wife as I do, I am morally certain I 
should kill him. If you went and said, 
'If you don't believe as I do, you'll be 
eternally damned,' it would be simple 
murder; and if I thought you such a 
criminal, and cared one jot for Joe's 
little children, I'd have you locked up." 

"Then you don't think he will be 
eternally damned?" 

"My object, like the Master's, is to 
try and save his life; so is yours. Not 
what I believe, but what I am going to 
tell him is the point. I have seen both 
practises during these last twenty odd 
years, and I am sure that the wiser men 
very often withhold what they think 
and get better results thereby. Is not 
the sole cause for the existence of our 
faith to attain results ? Or is it to have 
a pleasing feeling that we have done 
our duty? Like the lady who sent her 
loaves of bread to the hungry by a 
liveried footman, who with each loaf 
told them not to be gluttonous or to 
sell it for whisky. Though she believed, 
[50 




THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 





as I think rightly, that total abstinence 
is far the best way in life, her way of 
telling the whole of what she thought 
did not benefit either the cause or the 
people." 

"Then you think Christ wouldn't tell 
all he thought to our people? " 

"Look here, Parson. A year or two 
ago I gave a series of lantern talks to 
the people of this very place. The first 
was local views. It was greeted enthusi- 
astically. Number two was ' the great- 
est wonders of the world.' It was 
received somewhat skeptically and with 
much less interest. The third was on 
' starland, or astronomy made easy.' 
Most of the audience said that they must 
have been working extra hard that day, 
they all felt so sleepy. 

"Our folk don't see the good of learn- 
ing to swim. The water is too cold 
and it takes a lot of time and trouble, 
and they have an instinctive dread of 
ever getting beyond their depth. I've 
got to recognize that it is instinctive 
and treat it seriously. I'm advising you 
to do the same. Who are the men round 
here who are laying down the law to 
51] 





V 



1 



others most loudly, as if they 
infallible information concerning the 
inspiration of the Scriptures, the future 
of the soul, etc.? You know they aren't 
the best educated. Why, Parson, do 
you know that from a series of most 
carefully collected statistics over a large 
area it has been found that, with the 
decline of the revival camp meeting 
type of religion, there has been a pro- 
portional rise in the morality of the 
people, who have substituted greater 
dignity, a more 'reasonable service,' 
and have lost none of the zeal for Christ 
and his kingdom when they got rid of 
the emotionalism which was stultifying 
them and their view of religion? 

"Hasn't it always seemed odd to you 
that those who know least about any- 
thing which can be disproved claim to 
know most about what I take it, from 
Christ and from Paul, our brains cannot 
conceive ? " 

"Then you don't believe in the in- 
spiration of the Bible and that all of 
it is true?" 

"When two men give different ac- 
counts of the same thing, Parson, I 
52 




fi 




THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

believe it is in the thing, but not in the 
accounts. I don't credit the authors 
with evil motives, only with being 
human beings. Don't forget, however, 
before I say more, that what I now say 
to you I wouldn't now say to your con- 
gregation if I stood in your shoes, 
for fear of being misunderstood. One 
should not destroy unless one does 
it only in order to rebuild a better 
structure. 

"For instance, I personally believe 
that the gospel according to Matthew 
was the gospel according to Matthew. I 
believe that the gospel according to Luke 
was the gospel according to Luke, and 
that the gospel according to Mark was 
not the gospel according to Mark." 
"Why not?" "Well, because it flavors 
too strongly of Peter." 

"You mean that Peter dictated it, 
as he was an unlearned and ignorant 
man?" 

"Exactly. I believe it was Peter's 
version of the matter." 

"Don't you think, then, that he was 
inspired differently from what we are 
today? " 







THE ATTRACTIV 

"My dear Parson, I fear he did pos- 
sess, as a matter of fact, more of Christ's 
actual nearness than you or I. Though 
I only accept that because of the record 
of his life subsequently. But beyond 
that, surely our lives if not our words 
are capable of exactly similar inspiration. 
Would you believe in Christ more or 
follow him better if he had turned that 
stone into bread and so avoided suffer- 
ing; had used superhuman methods 
rather than human?" 

"No." 

"Then why would you want to judge 
any man as no true follower of Jesus 
Christ who loves him all the better 
because he thinks Christ never used us 
men as machines but as his friends, 
allowing us to be men that he might 
have something to praise us for and 
we something to work for ? You'll have 
a hard battle, Parson, as knowledge goes 
on, to have a man call himself a Chris- 
tian at all if you try to make men 
swallow what it has become impossible 
for their stomachs to bear. They will 
be forced to throw it up. You cannot 
thumbscrew men or ostracize men or 
[54 





THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 




punish men anyhow for having different 
opinions. That is the trouble with my 
sick man now; I cannot make him keep 
his food down." 

"If I were to go out and preach all 
that here, Doctor, they would rise in a 
body and drive me out." 

"That would be a pity, Parson. Don't 
you do it. But I am going down now 
to see the sick man in your house. That 
excellent loaf we have just been eating 
makes me feel fit for work and a walk. 
But if I were to go there and give it to 
Joe it would kill him inside six hours. 
Perhaps I may give it to him six weeks 
from now with advantage." 

"But, Doctor, I feel I ought not to 
hide the truth as I see it." 

"Well then, Parson, you shouldn't 
want to be wiser than your Master. 
When he came to the conclusion that 
the intellect of the Galilean Jew of a.d. 
31 wasn't able to grasp his wisdom, he 
gave them just enough of the water of 
life in parables not to choke them and 
just enough of the bread of life not to 
give them spiritual indigestion. 'Ex- 
cept in parables, spake he not at all.' 
55 









THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

He explained them to the disciples to 
whom he could devote plenty of time. 
Even when they asked him direct ques- 
tions he didn't always answer them. 
I have sometimes thought that they 
showed mighty little intelligence to 
need those long explanations, and after 
all they showed very little real appreci- 
ation of his teaching. I never forget, 
when I think of inspiration, James and 
John quarreling as to which of them was 
to get the most out of it, just after they 
had had the Last Supper. Yet I half 
liked them for it, because it made them 
so human — more like myself. I ad- 
mired them more when I believed that 
they minded those floggings and ston- 
ings and loneliness and misunderstand- 
ing more because of it. They must 
have lain awake in bed and worried just 
as I do, instead of being like those 
ecclesiastical effigies on tombs, or as 
they are shown in ' religious ' pictures, 
with an unnatural enjoyment of arrows 
through their vital organs. 

"Come on, Parson. My sick man 

needs me and you have some one who 

needs you. If you will confess, as I 

[56] 




know you will, that you don't know all 
about the right treatment yet, and will 
go out and ask Him who does know to 
make you wise as a child of light should 
be, you will get the knowledge necessary 
to help you win men to the way of life; 
and you will be a happier man if you 
use your God-given manhood and com- 
mon sense to give or withhold rather 
than, when any earnest or needy man 
asks you how he can win out in the 
battle with sin, feel you must reply, 
'Say Shibboleth,' and if he can't say it 
with an 'h,' slay him everlastingly, even 
in your own mind." 

To sum up. One of the inevitable 
lessons of the medical profession has, 
alas, to be emphasized in the post-mor- 
tem room; viz., that all human intelli- 
gence is human still. No lesson is more 
needed than this by would-be advocates 
of Christ's way of life. That such a 
leader of men as Joshua, who so suc- 
cessfully brought his people into their 
promised land, should allow to go on 
record the repeated divine entreaties to 
keep up his courage suggests the recog- 
nition on his part of another of our 
57] 




THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 

greatest needs. Others besides popes 
have lacked courage to abandon inde- 
fensible positions, such as that the world 
was flat, until they were forced to do 
so at the point of the bayonet. Their 
reason was simply the hoary antiquity 
of the point in question and their own 
lack of wisdom. "Let them say" is a 
far better answer to "What will men 
say?" than any dictated by fear, which 
does despite to such common sense as 
we do possess. 

The clinic of two surgeons at the in- 
significant town of Rochester in Minne- 
sota has become world famous and world 
useful because of their willingness, their 
eagerness in fact, to abandon methods 
or theories which new knowledge had 
superseded, even though in their day 
and generation they might have served 
to save life. 

Fearlessness is a vital factor in real 
faith. To boast of the little we believe 
is a confession of weakness. It is an 
evidence of manliness and the road to 
achievement to be able to believe much. 
It was no sign of credulity in Fulton that 
he should have wished to be buried on 






THE ATTRACTIVE WAY 




the banks of the Ohio, so sure was he 
that some day the sound of vessels pro- 
pelled by steam would resound over its 
waters. 

Men will always flock to the colors at 
the call to service, if only they are the 
right colors. Not infallibility, but com- 
mon sense and unselfish courage; not 
denunciation, but courageous optimism 
and the humility which characterizes 
aspiration are the colors the display 
of which will without fail to-day and 
every day rally men to the company 
of Jesus Christ. 





M 6 1913 




"MEN WILL ALWAYS 
FLOCK TO THE COLORS AT 
THE CALL TO SERVICE, IF 
ONLY THEY ARE THE 
RIGHT COLORS." 




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"NOT INFALLIBILITY, BUT 
COMMON SENSE AND UN- 
SELFISH COURAGE; NOT 
DENUNCIATION, BUT COUR- 
AGEOUS OPTIMISM." 




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